Lead Software Engineer

Company Description

Open GI is a leading software development company and a trusted partner to the general insurance industry. Based across the UK and Europe, our support and development services make us a truly diverse organization that offers a range of IT solutions to insurance brokers, insurers, and managing general agents.

It is our mission to be both the Technology Partner and Employer of Choice to the UK General Insurance market. Our people are placed at the heart of this and diversity, equality and inclusion are central to everything we do.

Position

Design and development of solutions which enable OGI to lead the market, whilst continually improving the current technical estate. As a Lead Software Engineer, you’ll be given a platform to mentor other engineers and hone your own skills on a pathway to becoming technical lead.

Your key responsibilities

• Playing a lead role in designing, planning and delivering features and improvements to production.
• Collaborating closely with Architects, Principal Software Engineers, and Technical Leads to evaluate technical trade-offs, shape system architecture, and drive strategic design decisions.
• Documenting architecture decisions and being actively involved in the tribe’s architectural governance by providing advice and feedback on proposed architecture and design decisions.
• Coaching and mentoring the squad’s software engineers.
• Playing an active part in building a high-performance team culture.
• Supporting platforms and services in production, responding to change failures and fixing issues.
• Improving customer outcomes.
• Working with the rest of the team ensure all change takes us towards our technical goals.
• Hands on delivery of software working as part of cross functional scrum team. Advocating and implementing improvements in working practices.
• Contributing to a continually improving Agile software development framework.
• Liaising with Business Analysts, Developers and QA’s, establishing and implementing requirements and/or the resolution of live operational issues.

Experience

• Proven experience as a Java developer/software engineer.
• Building and running enterprise-scale web applications in production.
• Leading the development of systems and/or major new features in Java.

Skills

• Deep understanding and experience of developing using Java and SQL.
• Problem solving and deep analysis skills including ability to diagnose performance issues.
• Strong understanding of software design patterns, with the ability to apply them pragmatically to improve code maintainability, scalability, and architectural consistency.
• Proven experience in working with legacy codebases with an eye towards refactoring and modernisation to enhance performance, align with contemporary architectural standards, and support long-term maintainability.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts clearly and collaborate effectively across diverse stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrated ability to make sound technical decisions by evaluating architectural trade-offs, aligning solutions with business objectives, and leveraging best practices to guide engineering strategy.
• Extensive experience designing, developing, and integrating SOAP and RESTful web services, ensuring interoperability, scalability, and alignment with enterprise-grade service architectures.
• Understanding of secure coding practices, including input validation, authentication and authorisation mechanisms, and mitigation of common vulnerabilities.
• Proven leadership in guiding development teams, fostering a culture of technical excellence, and mentoring engineers through code reviews, best practice and design discussions.

Aptitudes

• Balances technical excellence with pragmatic delivery of business goals; makes architectural decisions aligned with product vision and customer value.
• Proactively drives tasks to completion with minimal supervision; takes accountability for outcomes and follows through on commitments.
• Applies logical thinking and structured analysis to diagnose issues, design solutions, and make sound technical decisions.
• Quickly absorbs new technologies, tools, and concepts; applies past experience in new contexts and encourages innovation.
• Delivers high-quality work with precision; consistently ensures correctness in code, documentation, and communication.
• Thinks outside the box to solve complex problems; contributes to technical innovation and process improvement.

Mission and Values

Our mission is to be both the Technology Partner and Employer of choice for the UK General Insurance Market. Our values are central to this vision, as they represent how we collaborate to continually deliver for our customers:

• Accountability: We own our actions and shape our success on the results we deliver
• Innovation: We tackle challenges with fresh thinking and bold ideas
• Teamwork: We work together, recognising we can’t do this without each other
• Trust: We build trust on integrity, transparency and respect

We are looking for an individual who embraces our values in their actions, decisions, communications and processes to inspire positivity and, ultimately, exceptional performance.

Benefits package

• Salary of circa £57,000 depending on skills and experience
• Company pension
• Bonus opportunity
• Life assurance and critical illness cover
• Cycle to work scheme
• Perkbox – an exclusive platform offering a wide range of discounts and benefits
• Holiday entitlement of 25 days per annum, increasing to 26 days per annum after three years of service & a holiday purchase scheme
• Opportunity for a more flexible approach to start, finish, and lunchtimes to allow you to better manage events outside of work
• Social clubs - whether you’re into your cycling, crafts, or other hobbies, we have a number of groups at Open GI where individuals who enjoy the same pursuits can get together
• Wellbeing – wills at work scheme, employee assistance programme and mental health first aiders

Please note, this is a hybrid role requiring in-office attendance at our Worcester office twice a week, therefore we are looking for candidates who live within a commutable distance to this office.